{"id":5641,"date":"2018-05-03T10:32:38","date_gmt":"2018-05-03T09:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/school.chethams.com\/?p=5641"},"modified":"2018-05-03T10:40:30","modified_gmt":"2018-05-03T09:40:30","slug":"a-hitchhikers-guide-to-chethams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chethamsschoolofmusic.com\/blog\/a-hitchhikers-guide-to-chethams\/","title":{"rendered":"A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Chetham’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent weeks, students from Year 9 have been reading Douglas Adams’ A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy<\/em>, and creating their own ‘Guides to Chetham’s’ written in a similar style. Fourteen year old Sophie rose to the challenge set by English teacher Mr Runswick Cole with particular aplomb – take a trip to Planet Chetham’s with her below.<\/p>\n

“Right in the centre of an insignificant planet, in an insignificant country, in an insignificant city, there is an average sized building in which less-than-average-sized-humans make loud noises for a few years and then leave. It is known on earth as \u2018Chetham’s School of Music.\u2019 One can go visit this place, however it is not advisable as being in close proximity to its inhabitants for more than an hour can cause chronic diseases such as a \u2018longing for something other than what is known as \u2018classical music’\u2019 and \u2018oh my gosh why can\u2019t the violas just play in tune-itis\u2019.<\/p>\n

Some of the inhabitants of this school choose to leave their families and \u2018board\u2019 (board- a wooden plank usually used as flooring.) When an inhabitant \u2018boards\u2019 or becomes a \u2018boarder\u2019 (boarder- like a hoarder but with a b) they are no longer allowed to do as they please and in effect become prisoners. The guards (known as \u2018house staff\u2019) prevent the inhabitants from leaving at inappropriate times and subject them to strange rituals such as the \u2018wake up call\u2019 (this is when one particular \u2018house staff member\u2019 will punch an entrance\/exit slab (known on earth as a \u2018door\u2019) three times whilst screaming \u2018good morning\u2019 in as bland a tone as possible in as much the same style as a foghorn.) Nobody really knows the exact translation of these words but interstellar translators believe that it is something like \u2018Run away small humans before a large bulldozer decides to run over you.\u2019<\/p>\n

The inhabitants of the school are also subject to the most cruel torture currently allowed in the galaxy. On Earth this is known as \u2018School dinners\u2019. (This type of torture is much like the experience of having your left eye prodded with a fork covered in tabasco sauce.) The leader of these less-than-average-height-humans is a strange being, known for his oddly large collection of plaid shirts. Some say that he comes from a far off land, known as \u2018chchchcgcghgahahagghaaogochedygoch\u2019 locally known as \u2018Wales.\u2019 This gives him a curious tendency to speak with as much phlegm in the back of his throat as is humanly possible without drowning. He lives life on the culinary edge by foregoing boring old \u2018cheese-on-toast\u2019 in favour of the exotic delights of \u2018Welsh Rarebit\u2019 (when running out of Rarebit, he finds that \u2018cheese-on-toast\u2019 makes a perfectly acceptable substitute.) Besides this he also has a rather unhealthy fixation for close harmony singing. Despite all this, he is a rather reliable being, who always knows where his towel is.<\/p>\n

Also working at the school is a mysterious Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, currently in disguise as a \u2018musical director.\u2019 He thinks that nobody has noticed yet, but the waving of his sonic screwdriver to keep the noise makers playing has given himself away. Other than this strange leader and undercover Time Lord there are a number of older-more-average-height-humans known as \u2018teachers.\u2019 These beings possess large amounts of information in a particular subject and are able to remember lots of facts in the same way that a spoon cannot. Another little known fact about the school is that it is actually a cover up for a huge strepsil smuggling operation in the schools \u2018medical centre\u2019 (medical centre – the middle of me two cals.)<\/p>\n

If you do decide to visit the school then please be careful not to be kidnapped by the nargles and whobits. And of course, don\u2019t forget your towel.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Great work, Sophie – and we don’t think we’ll ever look at Mr Jones or Mr Threlfall in the same way again…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent weeks, students from Year 9 have been reading Douglas Adams’ A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and creating their own ‘Guides to Chetham’s’ written in a similar style. Fourteen year old Sophie rose to the challenge set by English teacher Mr Runswick Cole with particular aplomb – take a trip to Planet Chetham’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[104],"class_list":["post-5641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-academic"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chethamsschoolofmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chethamsschoolofmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chethamsschoolofmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chethamsschoolofmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chethamsschoolofmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chethamsschoolofmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5643,"href":"https:\/\/chethamsschoolofmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5641\/revisions\/5643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chethamsschoolofmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chethamsschoolofmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chethamsschoolofmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chethamsschoolofmusic.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}